All Rise...

Editor's Note

The Charge

Hey LADY!!!

The Case

After years of doing a successful act with partner Ben Bailey, Bill Miller
(Dean Martin) is all set to marry his longtime girlfriend, Broadway sensation
Mary Turner (Polly Bergen, Kisses for My President, Cry-Baby). Bill sees the wedding as a new start,
so he decides to leave Ben and go off on his own. He also makes Mary quit her
career to focus full-time on him. Within a few weeks though, it's clear that
Bill is a bust as a solo act. Hoping to turn around his fortunes, his agent Leo
suggests he hire a stooge, a plant to sit in the audience that he can involve in
some (hopefully) witty repartee. Calling up a local music publishing house, Leo
gets bumbling idiot Ted Rogers (Jerry Lewis) to help out his struggling star.
Ted is an immediate hit and soon Miller is making headlines around the country
with his newfangled comedy routine. Naturally, he takes all the credit and gives
none to Ted, which makes Leo and Mary very angry. After getting hired on by the
most prestigious producer in New York, it appears Ted will finally get his due,
but Bill still wants all the glory. It will take a last minute change of heart
before he will ever acknowledge the fame he's gained at the hands of The
Stooge.

It's a very unnerving experience watching The Stooge, especially if
you know anything about the phenomenal success and messy break up of its
starring duo, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. From 1946 to 1956 they were, without
question, the most famous, triumphant, and beloved comedy team in the world.
Throughout their decade together, they headlined nightclubs, appeared on radio,
had their own variety show on NBC (The Colgate Comedy Hour), and made 16
feature films together. Martin was also a recording artist, and the multi-media
approach to their career made them the biggest entertainment act in the history
of performing, a label that would require a certain boy from Tupelo and four mop
tops from Britain to challenge and reclaim.

The reasons for their breakup have always been suspect. Many claim it was
out-of-control egos (Martin hated Lewis getting all the press, Lewis wanted more
creative control over the duo's act and films) that doomed the pair. Others
argue that after scaling such unimaginable heights together, there was a natural
desire to see if each could do the same on their own. And to hear Lewis tell it,
their partnership was just like a marriage, and after so many years together in
a constant whirlwind of work, they simply needed a separation—which,
naturally, turned into a divorce. No matter what version you buy in to, the
truth is that Martin and Lewis achieved everything a club act could ever wish
for, so with nothing left to conquer, the reasons to stay together were a lot
less cogent than the one's beckoning them to spread their creative wings.

So with all this context in place, what are we to make of a movie, made five
years before they would finally go their separate ways, that makes Dean look
like a chump, Jerry a youthful genius, and their relationship a one way street
with Martin hogging all the accolades and Jerry just wanting a morsel of
respect? While this may seem like a gross over-exaggeration of The
Stooge's plot, the opposite is actually true. Certainly it is not 100%
autobiographical, but it is impossible to watch this film and not feel like
you're smack dab in the middle of a romanticized look at the rift that broke up
this entertainment empire. In scene after scene, we see the twinge of bitterness
in Martin's eyes whenever anyone on screen belittles his influence in the Miller
and Rodger's act. And who could mistake the shy smirk across Lewis's mug when
Ted gets praise for being the magic that makes the pair so successful.

Trying to be a broad, behind the scenes showbiz farce, but feeling more
manipulative and mean, every step of the way, The Stooge is an unfair
film to both of its stars. Over and over again, Martin's character is referred
to as a "ham," a thoughtless, arrogant egotist who only cares about
himself and his own success. He is viewed as witless, without a lick of real
stage presence and only capable of holding an audience when Lewis starts his
glorified retard routine. In one of the film's oddest, most underdeveloped
ideas, there are hints that Martin's Bill Miller is unreliable because
of…a hidden drinking problem. He is a notoriously bad drunk in The
Stooge, lashing out and hurting those around him. Sitting through this film
is like watching a 100-minute montage of the reasons for the falling out that
occurred between this crazy comedic concoction. It also does a devilishly
deceptive job of making a monster out of Martin.

Lewis, on the other hand, is the kid, the monkey, the idiot savant without a
single shred of self-centered desire throughout the running time of this film.
It is practically a love letter to his slapstick saving of Dean's ass. Mind you,
this is all done as "fiction," with several situations patently the
device of a screenwriter (Lewis was always a full partner in the act with
Martin, always received billing, and was never shortchanged by Dean when it came
to credit or publicity). Yet one can't shake that disquieting, unnerving
sensation of overhearing things we shouldn't be. It wouldn't matter so much had
Martin and Lewis been playing against type, or actually crafting
three-dimensional characters with very little resemblance or resonance to
themselves. But just like Jailhouse
Rock, or A Hard Day's Night,
we are basically being given the performers we have come to know and love, with
a little fictionalized fluff around the edges. And you can read a lot into the
situations these stars are being filtered through during the strange,
melodramatic mess of The Stooge.

It is also hard to imagine that anyone watching this film will come away
thinking that Martin and Lewis were anything other than a polished, pleasant
amusement. They do not come across as the high priests of hilarity in this film.
Their staged routines are decent, but they tend to be toned down to stay within
the tired singer/standards ideal. Lewis is still playing a complete and utter
moron, doing derivative shtick like falling down and making faces to
(supposedly) leave the audience in stitches. Martin is also hampered here, given
several unpleasant tunes to croon (except for the decidedly weird "Who's
Your Little Whozis?") that offer nothing of his dynamic range or
bleary-eyed bravado. As the women in their life, Polly Bergen is more or less
along for the ride, getting to suffer stoically as Mary until she just can't
take it anymore. Far more impressive is Marion Marshall playing the oddly named
"Frecklehead" Tait. As Lewis's lass, she gets the chance to match the
maniac gesture for flail throughout the course of the narrative.

While it is entertaining, and just a little bit saccharine and sentimental,
one can hardly consider The Stooge a success. Perhaps had the film not
mimicked so many of what we've come to believe are flaws in the Martin and Lewis
partnership, had it tried to deliver something other than their nightclub act
crammed into a standard stage door diorama, it would be a better film. But we
come to a Martin and Lewis title to laugh, to be whisked away on waves of
unbridled humor that made this couplet a premier package during the '40s and
'50s. The Stooge offers up none of their patented magic. Instead, it
seems to be airing a lot of dull, dirty laundry that many will find far more
uncomfortable than side splitting. It may be worth seeing once, but there is too
much baggage bandied about to turn The Stooge into a cinematic
classic.

Paramount's presentation of this title is pretty tentative, as if to test
the waters before releasing other artifacts of the Martin and Lewis big screen
teaming. The 1.33:1 full screen transfer is very clean, with lots of depth and
detail in the black and white imagery. There is a very claustrophobic feel to
director Norman Taurog's framing—even in the long shots—and we get
the impression of an image crammed with too much information, be it in human or
art department form. Still, there are no real visible defects and a hint of the
preservationist in Paramount's packaging.

Too bad the remainder of the technical specs are so unspectacular. The Dolby
Digital Mono sounds as shrill and flat as you'd find in any late night UHF
airing of this attraction, and Paramount barely opens up the contextual coffers,
giving us a single, silly trailer as the sole bonus feature.

The myth of Martin and Lewis remains as intriguing today as it was fifty
years ago. To imagine the incredible popularity, to understand what a post-War
world saw in this swarthy Italian crooner and his made monkey man provides
untold hours of intriguing consideration. The Stooge provides none of the
necessary clues to show us why this act topped them all, but it does sort of
divulge the hidden agendas that could have resulted in their less than amicable
split. There are better movies by this amazing pair sitting in the vaults.
Hopefully Paramount will hurry up and release them, before The Stooge
remains the only cinematic artifact of their superstardom. And it's not a pretty
picture for either man.